


I Am Not What I Am

by ashtopop



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, F/M, Headcanon, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 14:30:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5629819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashtopop/pseuds/ashtopop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deacon has been watching.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. False Flag Operation

**Author's Note:**

> The title quotes Iago’s monologue in Act 1, Scene 1 of Othello.

Watching Vault 111 was a non-essential task, merely a blip on PAM’s radar as she scanned for unusual Institute activity. They’d been active in the area before, she noted, but before recent operational logs accounted for. He was just stopping by between missions, lured by the call of a tarp tent and mattress in a relatively quiet part of the ‘Wealth. His feet were propped on the makeshift table in front of him, taking slow sips of Nuka Cola and observing the unique Vault entrance with interest subdued by the languid satisfaction of a job well done.

He leaned back in the chair, feeling it creak as the front legs lifted but enjoying his stretch nonetheless. Time underground had its perks—lack of sun exposure made a great excuse for recruits and tourists who doubted his tales about his age—but it did limit movement. His eyes weren’t on the vault, but on the blue sky above it when the vault alarms started going off.

He jumped, nearly tipping over the chair by overcorrecting his balance. He dropped his Cola as desperate hands sought something to balance himself on, but once steadied he didn’t spare a glance for the precious liquid spilling into the dry dirt. Caution lights topside lit and began flashing, their spinning warning timed with his heart as he slid off his chair and into the dirt beside the table. He watched from above as someone rose from below like Eurydice from the underworld. But she didn’t look back. Her black hair, too long, too well-groomed for the Commonwealth, swirled in the wind above the vault as she threw a vault-suited arm over her face.

Had she been there before, or was this just an elaborate way to establish a legend? She, whoever she was, might have been down there waiting for a Railroad agent to show up—maybe to verify her origin story. The last survivor of Vault 111 was a hard pill to swallow, but so suspicious as to be believable. No one drawing that much attention to themselves could be an Institute spy, right?

She staggered toward a pre-war suburb he hadn’t visited, but knew the name of. Sanctuary. On impulse he withdrew a piece of chalk from his pocket and drew the Railroad callsign for ally on his overlook.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, seriously: walk up the hill from Vault 111 and you'll find a little Railroad outpost. It's a little too easy to imagine Deacon sitting there.


	2. Surveillance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time he didn’t leave a callsign, just an empty ashtray.

He smoked on top of the rocks across the road from the Red Rocket filling station outside Concord, watching her work on her guns and armor with interest. She had avoided sleep as long as possible, working in dim light until the dog nudged her, putting its nose in her lap. She’d deflated, setting aside the fiber she had been shredding with a deft hand.

She left a candle lit in the small filling station, but shoved wrenches into the doors. He could see her pat the dog’s head absently as she looked over her handiwork—the boarded-up window and nearby junk pile turned into things resembling useful.

He thought she had called it a night when he saw her climbing a makeshift ladder up to the roof. She sat down, legs dangling over the edge and he felt an involuntary shudder climb up his spine. Maybe a synth then? Not programmed for human biological imperatives that prioritized _not_ becoming an onomatopoeia on the sidewalk?

Her body was turned toward him, swathed in something resembling a blanket but possibly made of stitched together pre-war money, but her eyes were on Sanctuary Hills in the distance—the shadow of a statue and the few glowing lights she’d erected with the help of a local, leftover Mr. Handy (easily reprogrammed, well within Institute capabilities). Her eyes searched the darkness and, rather than retreating inside, she laid down at the edge. He sat back, watching her, careful to cover the glow at the tip of his cigarette with a hand. She curled against the dog who’d inserted himself into her company in lieu of a bed, seeming to fall asleep.

In Sanctuary Hills she could have had a bed and safety assured by fewer access points, but of course a devoted spy would not favor safety over accessibility. She wanted to be visible, available for contact.

He put down the binoculars.

This time he didn’t leave a callsign, just an empty ashtray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another looking over the Red Rocket filling station (a little harder to find, across the street and up a rocky slope toward Concord). Cue Deacon singing "Every Breath You Take," by the Police.


	3. Dry Cleaning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's wondering whether he should put that mark in the “probably a good spy” or “probably a bad spy” columns he’d started keeping track of.

When PAM started calling her a rogue variable, he couldn’t help but agree. The next time he saw her her hair was shorter, shaved on one side, but still as black as his pompadour wig. She was gonna make him look bad, for sure. Her looks were altogether unchanged, however, which was making him wonder whether he should put that mark in the “probably a good spy” or “probably a bad spy” column he’d started keeping track of.

A good spy also wouldn’t rub elbows with the most sensationalist journalist in town, but a good spy looking to be conspicuous just might. He couldn’t get a beat off her, and it was disconcerting—not to mention bad for his reputation. The smile on her face as she rounded the bases of Diamond City was hard to read. Was it longing? Nostalgia? Sadness? Or was it just supposed to be one of those. He rubbed his forehead below the baseball helmet he’d acquired as part of his security uniform.

It was time to bring in back-up.

He brushed past her roughly, righting her with a semi-apologetic grimace that seemed likely of the Diamond City Security guards. With his other hand, he snipped a small piece of her hair, palming it before anyone passing by saw, and leaving before she could get a good look at him. Her hair had been soft on his fingertips, and he found himself wondering if the Institute had missed a detail, or if the dead in the vault had the same.

He skipped town instead of dwelling on it, missing Publick Occurrences’ "Story of the Century.” When he reads it later, though, he wonders why an Institute spy would tell such obvious lies. He also wonders how it’s possible that her DNA matches the Gen-3 synth DNA in their records, but not directly. Half. Like a daughter, or a mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> True: I have every "chapter" written for this except for the "they bang" chapter, which is literally all I have written for an outline of that chapter. But hey. They'll bang, okay?


	4. Meeting Uncle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sure, she’d come out of the Vault perfect, but she was quickly accumulating the type of grime normal to the ‘Wealth.

He watched her at the Memory Den, but she doesn’t watch any memories from before Vault 111. Is it because they didn’t exist or because they didn’t match her cover story? House was betting on door one, since the likelihood of her being a synth seemed to be shrinking every day. Sure, she’d come out of the Vault perfect, but she was quickly accumulating the type of grime normal to the ‘Wealth, and the mask that went with it.

He left the tape in the room above KL-E-0’s gunshop in hopes her sticky fingered curiosity would lead her right where he wanted her. 

She didn't walk the Freedom Trail immediately. Plenty of other things to do than follow a giant red line directly where you’re wanted, he thinks, tapping his toes. But when she finally does, Dez probably doesn't help their cause when she starts the initiation with “who the hell are you?” Of course, he hadn’t exactly briefed Dez on that very topic, because he wasn’t quite sure himself. But for some reason, he found himself vouching for her, noting her work on settlements and with the Minutemen.

She didn’t bring anyone with her, despite her propensity to bring a companion with her everywhere she went. When Desdemona asked whether she’d take a bullet for a Synth, though, she snorted.

Dez instantly went on the offensive, but he held a hand out to stop the oncoming tirade. “She’s been hanging out with Nick Valentine, almost exclusively, for about a month.”

“That synth detective?” Dez asks, with consideration. The woman’s eyes flash to him in irritation and curiosity. She was probably wondering how he knew who she was keeping company with, but he knew far more intimate things than that—like exactly the face she’d made when she first learned people made food out of bloatflies. _That_ was one reaction you couldn’t fake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously though: bloatflies are not food. BLOATFLIES ARE NOT FOOD.
> 
> Also I really hope you guys are appreciating my spy terminology as chapter titles it's possible I've consumed wayyyyyYYYYY too much spy media so my infatuation with Deacon was kind of inevitable


	5. Innocent Postcard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And here I was wanting to spend the day reading Proust. And then you have to ruin it."

One day, rather than the usual do-good massacre that usually filled her schedule, they stayed cooped up in her old house. They read Proust—her, in the original French, him, wondering what the hell she was saying and _how_ the hell it sounded so sexy. _We don’t receive wisdom_ , she’d translated, _we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for or spare us._

At some point, he wasn't sure when, he'd started wondering if she was a spy at all. If she was, she was the best he'd seen. And so incompetent at cooking he had to wonder whether Institute training would allow it. 

She believed his story about being a synth with wide eyes and damp eyelashes, blinking at him owlishly behind glasses that weren't quite her prescription. She didn't even look at the recall code, pressing the folded piece of paper into her pocket and locking it away when they returned to one of her settlements. She had her back to him, but she moved enough that he could see the combination, if he wanted to. If he wanted to revoke his trust. 

Honestly, she was so _good_ he’d rather she was an Institute spy. He didn’t deserve her friendship, or her time, or that wrinkle between her eyebrows when she was concentrating really hard on something—whether that be modding one of her guns or distinguishing between his lies. She checked in with everyone at each settlement and brought toys for the children, always ensuring they ate enough and that any injuries were tended to. She’d grown up in an era without synthetics, but she was more accepting of them than almost anyone he knew. More accepting of them than he’d been, at least.

He pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket—his “recall code”—and moved it across the coffee table. She looked down over the top of the novel with surprise, setting the book to the side. Delicate fingertips slid the paper off the edge and into the palm of her hand. He could tell from the uplifted eyebrows and tension in her hands that she recognized the legal paper. Had she turned it over in her hands like he had, wondering whether to read it?

But she hadn’t. The paper still held the crease made by his own hands, one hair stuck in it so he’d know if she had. He was testing her. He knew he shouldn’t be, not still. Not after she’d saved his ass and he’d saved hers up and down the commonwealth. Not since they’d shared mattresses and drinks and stimpaks on rare, worrisome occasions.

“Read it,” he said.

“No.”

“Come on, Charmer. Do me a favor and read it?"

“No!” she said, dropping the paper and standing up from the table, banging her knees. She swore loudly, and across Sanctuary people turned an interested eye to her house. “No." She let out a sharp breath. "I know… I figured out about the fourth time you brought it up that it probably isn’t a recall code, okay? But it still seems like a violation of trust. I won’t do it.”

She stalked away from the house, leaving everyone to think what they liked. He looked down at the paper in front of him and spun it with his fingertips.

_You can’t trust everyone_ , he’d written, but maybe… just maybe, he could trust her. Just not her cooking. Or himself, because apparently he was a bit of an asshole if the look Dogmeat was giving him was anything to go by.

He threw the note in the fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also Deacon is such a pretentious fuck. Who reads Proust after the world ends? This guy. I love him h e l p m e


	6. Agent Handling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At least they'd had this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> moved the rating down because this didn't get as explicit as I thought it would

“Deacon,” Nick said in greeting, holding his cigarette between two robotic fingers that were disturbingly dextrous for what looked like metal twigs. "You two taking care of some… official business?”

Deacon swallowed, trying to figure out just exactly what Charmer’s faux-father figure was implying by that. And apparently it hadn’t been anything, _until Deacon took it that way_. Valentine gave him a dirty look, and Deacon coughed.

“Uh. Mr. Valentine- Nick. I haven’t the faintest what you’re talking about,” he said, as loftily as he could manage. Nick hmphed in a way only a man with the memories of a pre-war noir detective with a fantastic trenchcoat could.

He had what the experts called a case of the unresolved sexual tension, he thought, trying to readjust himself without drawing attention. Charmer was beautiful, and not in that bullshit “rose in the desert” way. No Shakespeare quotes masquerading as dick jokes (or was it the other way around), no metaphors about her hair or her smell or her skin. She just- oh, Jesus, he had it bad. She just _was_.

He swallowed hard, eyes seeking hers, but she was already looking at him with an unreadable expression in her eyes. Contemplation, maybe, like he was a revolver she could get to unjam but she’d _really_ like to. Her dusky pink lips pursed, wet from where she ran her lips over them, and she turned away.

He’d seen her work. She was as good—better—in a darkened room, some pre-war singer crooning over the airwaves and a pistol strapped to her inner thigh, than she was in the field, splattered with stray feral ghoul and soot. But with him recently… she’d been almost shy. At first he’d thought it was because of what he told her about Barbara, about being in the Deathclaws, but it wasn’t. It was about _them,_ and the nagging sexual tension showing itself in bickering, in the words unsaid pulled taut between them.

“I’m getting tired of waiting,” he said, his voice low. She looked up, surprised, lips parted. Tired of waiting for her to make a move. Tired of waiting for the world to get better.

“Me too,” she whispered, and his lips were on hers. She had a habit of wearing other people’s clothes, and he had a habit of wearing other people’s lives, but the kiss stripped them both. His fingers worked up her abdomen, toned, smooth skin under his fingertips before he pulled her shirt over her head. He pulled his own battered t-shirt off as she worked on his belt, nimble fingers well-practiced from picking locks and pockets alike.

He kissed down her neck and she tilted it to give him better access, kicking out of her own pants. He deftly unclasped her bra and let it fall, unable to help the small intake of breath when she was finally revealed to him. She had freckles on her shoulders. He’d had no idea. She had small, silvery stretch marks from having Shaun, little pieces of lightning that left dents in her skin. It was her secret self, the parts of her bared that no one else alive had seen. He rubbed his thumbs around her nipples, wrapping his hands around the underside of her breasts. Her breath caught, and she reached up, taking his sunglasses from him and letting them hit the floor.

“I need you, Deacon,” she said, her voice low. Their lips met in a kiss, this time inextricably more than the last, a passion and fervor burning through them. There would be no stopping. No rules against fraternization. He was a meteor burning up in the atmosphere of her hands, her heady little sounds as he explored her body. She was a red button pushed, waiting for the bombs to go off.

Her panties hit the ground and he lifted her onto the nearby dresser, tangling his fingers in her hair.

The end was coming, whatever it was. The final showdown between the Institute, the Railroad, and whoever else they decided to drag into it. If they didn’t survive it, or if only she did, at least they’d had this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have you heard that “I’m getting tired of waiting” piece of idle dialogue? I am a fan. (also yes I did imply that Deacon doesn’t even consider the fact that she might die and he might survive and HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO HURT YOURSELF THIS MUCH) and also this isn't included but Deacon is definitely the smoking in bed after type


	7. Burned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Deacon,” she said, eyes turning on him. She was trying to shutter hurt behind anger, but it was hard with what felt like a glass shard stabbed through her heart—or maybe her back. “You’ve been here before.”

“Deacon,” she said, eyes turning on him. She was trying to shutter hurt behind anger, but it was hard with what felt like a glass shard stabbed through her heart—or maybe her back. “You’ve been here before.”

“Right,” he drawled, in the lazy way he always had. She wanted to ignore the pause that came before his words. “I came out of that pod right there, didn’t I tell you? Early release program. For good behavior.” For a second she faltered, not because his story was believable, but because maybe… maybe he couldn’t do that to her. She’d brought the others down here, one by one, thinking that they had to see it to believe it, to understand why she’d pressed the big red button that annihilated her son and perhaps humanity’s best chance at returning to civilization. You can’t hide surprise at finding pre-war technology like cryogenic freezers, or at your friend (was that even what they were now?) showing you the place her baby was taken. Her dead husband, finger at an odd angle from where she’d had to break it to take his ring on her first return trip—her only token of him. You can’t hide surprise like that. And Deacon wasn’t surprised.

She’d gotten a lot faster at pulling her gun since she’d left the vault.

“Shaun said-” she gritted her teeth against the sting of tears in her eyes. “Shaun said the Institute saved him. Saved _us_. From what? From the Railroad? From _you_?” Deacon said nothing, and that was worse. “God, do you know who that is?” she said, tilting her gun at one of the cryo stations. “That’s Cindy Cofran. She was going to babysit Shaun when I started teaching night classes at MIT. Her dad shoveled our driveway by for us when I went into labor so we would come home from the hospital and not worry about it.” The tears were falling now, and she rubbed her hand over her eyes in irritation. He was so intent on her that he almost missed what she’d said: she’d been part of the Institute _before_. Of course. The laughter choked in his throat somewhere between agony and self-loathing.

“Did the Railroad do this? Kill all of these people?” she asked. But of course they did. She remembered Shaun saying every Gen-3 synth was based off of his DNA, and it wouldn’t have taken them long to figure out where the Institute had gotten pre-war DNA. She could see PAM’s prediction models now. Vault 111: liability.

She threw down her pipe pistol, her eyes on the floor where it landed, but unfocused. “I killed my son, Deacon. Desdemona handed me the button and told me to push it and I _did_ ,” she said, her voice cracking on the last word. “She was using me! You all were! You- you bastard!” she threw a punch at him, one he didn’t try to avoid. It landed on his cheekbone, but she hasn't put enough force into it to really hurt him. She couldn't help but remember the last time her hands had touched that skin she'd been kissing him. More than.

_God._ What had she done? What had _they_  done? “You _bastard,_ ” she sobbed, backing away from him. Her back hit a cryo pod—hers—and she slid down it, landing on the floor, breathing hiccuped by sobs that wracked her body.

He reached toward her, bruise beginning to stain his cheek, but she flinched away from him, curling into herself. 

“ _Go_. Just go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter that started it all—when I wondered why Deacon was the only companion who doesn’t say anything when you go into Vault 111 and also why you can’t romance him. Intentional? Definitely.
> 
> I'm not saying it's aliens but


	8. Loose Cannon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charmer was MIA.

Charmer was MIA. That’s what he told Desdemona. Maybe she didn't believe him, but he didn't warn her, either. If She—capital S—came back, he had no doubt Desdemona wouldn't stand a chance. Her, or anyone else She decided She needed gone to feel safe again. Would he be among that number?

With two heavies out of the field, there was no shortage of work for him, and he threw himself into it. Eliminating coursers, setting up MILAs, doing any miscellaneous bullshit task Railroad command could think of so long as it meant he didn’t have time to think.

Guilt was an old friend of his, but this time she skipped the foreplay and went right for the big guns. _Worthless_. Every time he thought was doing good, his world turned on its axis and it turned out he was everything he loathed. Had the Railroad done what she thought they did? Killed all those people, either 60 years ago or two? It didn't seem that farfetched, especially coupled with PAM's insistence the vault was destroyed and Desdemona's major hesitance to admit Her. He'd thought maybe Dez was questioning her loyalties, whether she was synthetic or just a spy, but maybe it had been more than that? He shook his head in a vain attempt to clear the thoughts so often present at the front of his mind he was thinking of charging rent.

He thought about going back to the Capital Wasteland. She wouldn’t follow him there, he didn’t think, but he didn’t want to hide from her, either., Remembering her tossing down her gun and sagging with the weight of her own guilt, fear, and _horror_ made him want to stick a gun in his mouth. But worse, she’d looked at him like she was terrified of him, of what he might say, suspicions he might confirm. No. He didn’t have the right to take his own life. That right was hers, if she wanted it. But she hadn’t looked for him. He checked in with his contacts in her settlements out of habit, and they said no one had seen her, Shaun, or her Mr. Handy.

And if they hadn't seen her, he knew where she was.

On the next MILA he left a note. Deacon, crossed off, just like her nickname on the board back at HQ.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the record, I also think the Railroad was more involved with Barbara’s death than we’re led to believe and basically I am a conspiracy theorist and Deacon is my video game soulmate *shakes fist at Bethesdad*


	9. Come in from the Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kingsport Lighthouse almost looked pre-war, if you ignored the mines and turrets.

Kingsport Lighthouse almost looked pre-war, if you ignored the mines and turrets. Most of them looked like her handiwork, but others looked like maybe Shaun had built them—the kid had a way with tools, just like his mother. He clenched his fists, pretending he wasn’t shaking, and walked through the front door. Frankly, he expected to have more holes in him, but when he walked in he was greeted by Codsworth, who’d taken up a bowler hat since he saw him last.

“Mister Deacon!” Codsworth said in his jolly voice. “I wasn’t aware mum was expecting guests. Do make yourself comfortable. She and Master Shaun should be home any minute.”

He sat down on the couch, feeling totally divorced from his body. His fingers itched for a cigarette, but she'd always hated the habit, so he didn't. Kingsport Lighthouse was the one place she didn’t invite settlers. Deacon had been with her when she found it, helped her clear out the Children of Atom weirdos, but if he hadn’t been he didn’t think she would have even told him.

So what was he doing there, besides intruding? He didn’t know. He wanted to throw himself at her feet and beg forgiveness for something he wasn’t even sure the Railroad had done. He wanted to make excuses and explanations and tell lies because that’s just what he did, but he knew he couldn’t— _wouldn’t_ —do that to her. He wanted to see her, because he missed her. Missed her like a drowning man missed oxygen or a junkie missed chems. Without her he didn’t want to keep on breathing, but it was more likely that being  _with_ her would stop his breathing sooner. He couldn’t bring himself to care.

She knew someone was there. She never held her gun when Shaun was around, not unless she was expecting trouble. Maybe he’d triggered some traps he hadn’t seen, then. She stepped through the door like vengeance personified, protectress of her home and son. Her black hair was flyaway, and there was a smudge of dirt on her cheekbone his fingers itched to wipe away.

The steel bucket in her other hand clattered to the floor, and he noticed crabs—ones that hadn’t turned evil and irradiated, her words, not his, with the bombs—wriggling to get free.

“Shaun, go upstairs,” she said. Shaun, raven-haired like his mother, looked over at her in confusion.

“But-“

“Shaun, _go_. Codsworth?” The Mr. Handy blinked at her, but when she nodded at Shaun’s retreating back he understood.

“Yes, Mum." Codsworth followed the boy up the steps.

“Deacon,” she said. He tried to beat out the hope that flared in his chest at his name on her lips.

“It’s Tom. Thomas Deacon. I…” He reached up, pulling off his sunglasses. She opened her mouth, either out of surprise or because she was going to say something. He would have fumbled to a stop anyway. “It wasn’t a codename. Or, it _was_ because no one thought it was my real name, but it wasn’t, because I didn’t have anyone left to lose.” Rambling. _Great_.

There was a moment of stillness.

“Are you still with them?” she asked. She holstered her gun, but the hurt was there, unspoken.

“No. Ideals are great and all. But I’m getting old. Ancient for the Wasteland. Hell, this is probably some _Lolita_ shit, but if I'm wanting a redemption arc… maybe I won’t find it with them.” _Maybe I’ll find it with you_. _If you want_. _Please._

“Athena Gray,” she said. Not Charmer. Not Blue. Not Mum or mom or ma’am or General or any of the other titles she’d earned and discarded in her time in the Commonwealth. She smiled, hesitant, small, but there. She stuck her hand out for him to shake, and he did. The smile grew a fraction, but her indigo eyes were still shuttered. Maybe she believed him when he said he had her back, no matter what, but he would have to prove it. Maybe more than once. That was fine with him.

“Would you… like to stay for dinner?” she asked, nodding back at the bucket behind her, where one crab had managed to wrestle free and begun the long journey back home. He nodded, feeling like his chest would burst if he didn’t let out the breath he’d been holding since she’d walked in the door. “We can talk more, after.”

She put her hand on his arm, and he left his sunglasses on the table.

_After_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO that's all folks
> 
> I'm actually pretty happy with this piece and glad it didn't overstay its welcome in my WIP folder. If you wanna see more Athena (pronounced Athehn-uh, and also she's Edward Gray's (as in Graygarden) daughter which might come up eventually?) or this spy-loving trash feel free to hmu on johnhalfcocked on tumblr or just stay tuned here after this commercial break


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